“He was weeping,” said Madame d’Artigues in an undertone. “Does it not look as if he liked him?”
“As a brother,” exclaimed Chéri-Bibi, who overheard the remark.
“What’s that?... What did he say?”
“Nothing, Madame,” said the Toper. “Can’t you see that he is soaked?”
“The worthy Captain is quite drunk,” said Robert Bourrelier.
“He is not so tipsy perhaps as he looks,” said Mlle. Carmen de Fontainebleau to Mlle. Nadège de Valrieu. “From what I can gather, this Chéri-Bibi is an amazing person, and in spite of his ugliness possesses an irresistible attraction. He seems to have bewitched this poor man, who does not look as if he had a very strong head on his shoulders.”
“The thing that impressed me most in what he said,” observed Mlle. Nadège de Valrieu, “was that the convicts have a dozen ways of escaping from their cages. That’s not very comforting for us, and we’re not absolutely safe here.”
“You may be right,” replied Mlle. Carmen de Fontainebleau. “The unfortunate part is that I don’t see where we could take refuge. Say what you like, I am far from being easy in my mind. Those men alarm me with their stories of convicts. I don’t say it in disparagement; I state the plain truth: they have the faces of convicts themselves.... So we’re going to see Chéri-Bibi, my dear Captain,” she said to him as he passed her, lurching slightly against the persons round him.
“Come with me,” he invited.
When they reached the ladder leading to the galleys, he stopped them to point out the store-room, and the traces of the fight which Chéri-Bibi had kept up there.
“You see, we were here,” he explained, “and he was over there taking pot shots at us. You should have seen it! I must admit that he’s a plucky fellow. We were more than a hundred to one against him. There was no getting near him. He leapt from one room to the other as if he were made of india-rubber, and in spite of all he was bullet-proof. Finally he fled into the galley from which there was no way out. Of necessity he was caught. We made a dash for the room. It was empty. How did he get away? That was the mystery.
“After looking everywhere we went off. Well, I can let you into the secret now because he told us the story. We had no sooner departed than he rose from the soup which was beginning to get hot, showed his head above the boiler, ascertained that he was alone, left his culinary bath, and concealed himself under the vegetables in the store-room, which we had searched just before in order to make sure that he was not hiding there. What do you think of that? We didn’t dream of looking for him in the boilers. They were hot, and steam was issuing from them.
“How could we suppose that Chéri-Bibi was hiding in the soup which was cooking over a slow fire? Obviously it was not yet boiling, but he told me that it was high time for him to leave it as the poor fellow can’t stand a bath above 104° although he has a pretty tough skin. Oh, he had more than one string to his how. I must add that he was specially assisted by one of his friends who was in league with him and managed to get himself and several coal-trimmers taken on the Bayard at the last moment, to replace men who had failed us. They all belonged to Chéri-Bibi’s gang. You can imagine how they worked for him!
“The cook’s mate, who was responsible for cooking the convicts’ rations, was made messenger to the cages, though most of the convicts hadn’t the slightest idea of it. When the food was distributed on the chains and the men were occupied round the tubs, or when they left the cages for their exercise on deck, it was he who found means of slipping into their kit-bags the bottles of rum with which those gentlemen regaled themselves; and, later on, arms such as cutlasses and revolvers stolen from the armory or straight from the convict guards. This baker’s man was as artful as a monkey and as nimble as a pickpocket.”
“Shall we see him also?” asked Mlle. Nadège de Valrieu.
“No, Madame, he is dead. We’ve lost him.
Chéri-Bibi was exceedingly upset about it, for this youngster — he was young, not quite twenty-two, and had big blue eyes — loved Chéri-Bibi as a dog loves his master. He followed him everywhere, in all his misfortunes, and often rescued him from starvation, for he was full of generosity and imagination.
“Poor little baker’s man, the victim of the feeling sacred among us all which we call friendship. Don’t be alarmed, ladies, I’m not going to shed a tear on his account. He caused us too much anxiety. It was he who, with the help of the coal-trimmers, paved the way for the mutiny. Ever since we sailed from the Ile de Ré he and they worked in the holds, making a hole in a bulkhead here and in a floor there, arranging ways of getting about the ship of which we were in complete ignorance, and fixing up hiding-places for Chéri-Bibi in boxes which we thought contained goods; hiding-places which we should never have suspected; and when Chéri-Bibi escaped they lent him clothes which enabled him to roam about the decks in broad daylight. Moreover, these were the men who, when the struggle began, stole the rifles of my brave warders and handed them over to the mutineers. You see, ladies and gentlemen, we were in a fine mess!”
Having said which Chéri-Bibi beckoned his hearers to follow him on deck, in the manner of an official guide in a public building whose business it is to exhibit and to expatiate upon the curiosities of which he is the faithful guardian.
Arrived on deck the pilgrims were filled with wonder. They might have been at a county fair. Small flags and festoons of Chinese lanterns were hung out on every hand. The Captain explained that after the terrible tragedies which had taken place his men required some diversion. Thus he had promised them an entertainment in which some of them would sing and some act in a farce such as is the custom in the French navy; and afterwards there would be a dance to the music of an improvised band. Then speaking directly to Miles, de Valrieu and Fontainebleau Chéri-Bibi said:
“If you would deign to accept the applause of poor sailormen and be kind enough to contribute a ‘number’ I’m sure that my men would never forget it.”
How was it possible to refuse him? Besides, the suggestion greatly amused the ladies; and doubtless the entertainment would help to dissipate the strange feeling of uneasiness which weighed upon them though they knew not why.
“Toper,” shouted the Captain, and the second-incommand at once rushed up to him. “Is everything ready in the cages?”
“Yes, Captain.”
Chéri-Bibi added in a lower tone:
“Do they know that at the first word I’ll have them shot where they are?”
“That’s perfectly understood, Captain, and I don’t think they’ll need a second warning.”
“All right, off we go to the Zoological Gardens.” The ladies stood round him; they wanted to be in the front row. They descended to the main gun deck. A deathly silence reigned in the cages. The visitors, greatly impressed, dared not utter a word. And for some moments they looked at each other, standing motionless by the side of the bars.
When their eyes had grown accustomed to the semi-darkness which prevailed on this deck, they began to distinguish the details of the crude accommodation in which the wretched men were crowded. “Poor fellows!” exclaimed Madame d’Artigues. The others also were moved to pity. “Poor fellows!” They asked about their beds and what food they were given, and wanted to know if they were well looked after.
“Oh, of course they’re well looked after. There’s no mistake about that,” replied Chéri-Bibi. “Aren’t you well looked after, you fellows? Come, answer me. Is there a single one here who has any complaint to make? You see, ladies, they don’t answer, and not a soul complains! They’re quite satisfied.”
Chéri-Bibi exhibited these men in the same way as the proprietor of a menagerie shows off his wild beasts and enlarges on their good points.
“Come... Step out of the ranks, you Whiskers. Come here, Miser. And you, Spoon-face, over there. What are you whining about? Is it your rheumatism?”
“What’s the matter with that man?” asked Madame d’Artigues.
�
�He’s mourning for his poor wife, who met with an accident.”
“Dear me, what was that?”
“He poured some molten lead over her.”
“Oh, the villain! You wouldn’t think it to look at him. See, Marquis, what a nice face he has.”
“Yes, indeed, as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.”
“I remember reading about the case at the time,” said Robert Bourrelier.
“It’s amusing to see all the notorious criminals whose trials were reported in the newspapers. Don’t you think so, Marquis?”
“I do indeed, Madame.”
“Say what you like, they were represented as much more brutal in appearance,” said Mlle de Valrieu. “It’s very funny, but they don’t look a bit vicious.”
“This brute is not vicious, but when he is attacked he defends himself,” growled Chéri-Bibi, hurrying his guests along towards the other cages.
He was carrying a stick, and he struck the bars with it as if he were a wild beast tamer rousing his animals from their lethargy.
“Now then, stand up in the cages. Can’t you get up, you fellows? Don’t you see that we’re paying you a visit? Honor to the ladies! Come, Guillotine, Anarchist and Tuesday Night!...”
“What do you say that man’s name is?”
“Tuesday Night.”
“What a funny name! Why do you call him that?”
“Oh, one name is as good as another. Probably all his troubles happened on Tuesday Night.... You see that man over there.... Do you know what he’s called? His name is Lace Stealer.”
“What did he do?”
“Now then, answer.... What did you do?”
“I don’t know, Captain.”
“What, you don’t know! With a name like that!... You smuggled lace; of course you did.
.. Another case of dodging the Customhouse.
.. Stand up, Cow’s Tail. This one takes his name from Cow’s Tail Alley, where he committed his first crime. He had a fight with a policeman and killed him. Isn’t that so, Cow’s Tail?”
“I don’t know, Captain.”
“What, you don’t know!”
Chéri-Bibi turned to the sergeant of the guards, infuriated.
“It’s very extraordinary, sergeant. The men in the cages know nothing whatever. How do you spend your time? You’ve got to make them repeat what they’ve done.”
“How do you mean make them repeat what they’ve done?” asked Robert Bourrelier.
“Well, the object is to force them to remember their crimes and feel some remorse for them.”
“Look, Captain, at that man over there shrugging his shoulders.”
“Is there a man here who dares to shrug his shoulders!” shouted Chéri-Bibi in a voice of thunder. “I dare say it’s some hot-head. I don’t allow men with hot heads on them to shrug their shoulders.”
And as a grin followed this slightly hazardous figure of speech Chéri-Bibi lost patience.
“What do you suppose will be the result of such conduct?” he shouted, beside himself. “You want to make me lose my temper. Devil take you all! Try to respect what is worthy of respect, and respect yourselves if possible by respecting the decent people who happen to be on board with you. If you continue to behave in this way, what do you suppose these shipwrecked ladies and gentlemen will think of you?... And now we’ve had enough of the main gun deck Let’s go below to the lower gun deck, but first of all I’ll show you Chéri-Bibi’s cell.”
He took them to the famous alley-way in which the cells were situated. First he went to the cell in which the Countess had been incarcerated, and he pointed out the cavity through which she had escaped with the notorious convict. In the same way the concierge at the Château d’lf in “Monte Cristo” showed visitors the underground tunnel by which the Abbé Faria communicated with Edmond Dantès.
“Here was imprisoned a wretched woman whom we have since hanged,” he said. “She had obtained permission to accompany her husband to Numea. You will, perhaps, recollect the story of the doctor who cut strips of flesh out of his patients, and was suspected of cannibalism.”
“Oh, how horrible!” exclaimed Madame d’Artigues.
“Yes, yes,” said Mlle. Nadège, “the trial was reported in the newspapers. Is the doctor here? We should like to see him.”
“We hanged him.”
“Good Lord, how many have you hanged?”
“As many as were necessary to secure the safety of the ship,” declared Chéri-Bibi in emphatic tones. “This woman was, as I say, accompanying her husband, but she had occasion to see Chéri-Bibi, and was at once seized with a mad infatuation for him. It was she, chiefly, who helped the cook’s mate, of whom I was speaking just now, in his schemes for Chéri-Bibi’s escape.
“Look at this cell, and now look at the other one.
There’s no passage between them, is there? Now it was in this cell that Chéri-Bibi was imprisoned in irons, and watched by two warders. How was it possible for him to pass from this cell to the woman’s cell and to escape down that cavity? It was done in the simplest way imaginable. Look...
“The woman got herself sent below to the cell on purpose, knowing that this was the only unoccupied cell, and that as soon as she was locked in, she had only to go to work on this little contrivance.” Chéri-Bibi started to unscrew the bolts which secured one of the iron plates between two cells. “Don’t assume that this work was prepared by some miserable convict in his spare time. Not at all. It was done by the warders themselves — in the navy we call convict guards, warders. The unscrewing of the plate by a woman prisoner, who knew the trick and had done it before, caused no surprise to the two warders who were in the next cell guarding Chéri-Bibi and boring themselves to death.
“Listen to this carefully: One guard said to the other, ‘Hullo, this is a bit of all right” as the face of the woman appeared when the plate was removed.... You can guess the rest.... The devoted cook’s mate was hiding behind the plank bed. When the first guard climbed over here to get to this spot which you see, the woman threw her beautiful arms round his neck and a bootlace as well, which the cook’s mate tightened with a will.
“Astonished that the first guard did not return the second guard climbed over in the same way, and was at once furnished with the explanation which he was seeking. He understood and died, whereupon the cook’s mate, who had taken the precaution to obtain the key of the padlock from the Captain’s jacket — they would have done without it if necessary, be assured — had only to set Chéri-Bibi free, lock the padlock again, put the dead warders back in the first cell, screw up the iron plate, replace the key in the Captain’s pocket — I am always so absent-minded and preoccupied — and the trick was done. What do you think of that, ladies and gentlemen?”
“Amazing!... Wonderful!... Extraordinary!”
“That ass, Captain Barrachon, hasn’t got over it yet,” added Chéri-Bibi.
“But don’t say such things, dear Captain,” laughed Mlle. Carmen de Fontainebleau in a flattering voice. “Please don’t speak ill of Captain Barrachon.”
“That’s true, I was forgetting,” growled Chéri-Bibi. “I mustn’t run him down before the crew. But there are times when I am very angry with myself, you know. To be humbugged like that is enough to give one a fit, as my concierge says.”
“Now take us to Chéri-Bibi. We must see Chéri-Bibi.”
They left the orlop deck to mount to the lower gun deck; and here they saw more men in cages. The ladies acknowledged that these men did have the abominable faces of convicts.
“Now look at that man over there,” said Mlle. Nadège de Valrieu. “I shouldn’t like to meet him alone in a wood.” And she pointed to the distinguished Lieutenant de Vilène himself.
This naval officer, the chief personage in the tremendous adventure, looked in truth at that moment extremely sullen. The condition of this man was to be pitied, for he was compelled to restrain the rage which filled him against the monster Chéri-Bibi, conscious that i
f he did not succeed in mastering himself, or if he permitted a dubious word to escape him in regard to the peculiar circumstances which had reversed their individual parts, he might, perhaps, be giving the signal for a general massacre, and the shipwrecked persons who were visiting them would not be the last victims. But the prodigious moral effort that this condition entailed betrayed itself in his features, which by no means offered a welcome, as Mlle. Nadège de Valrieu had at once observed.
“You ought to be ashamed,” Mlle. Carmen de Fontainebleau flung at him. “What did this man do?” she asked.
“He didn’t do anything particularly bad, but the jury none the less brought him to book. Twenty years hard labour for attempting to murder his mother-in-law. Look at him, and believe me, it’s not pride or obstinacy or scorn which keeps him silent.
He is tormented by a bitter regret, the regret that his attempt failed.”
“Certainly all the men here have a wicked look.”
“We are in the only spot on earth where we can really judge people from their actual appearance,” declared Chéri-Bibi in sententious tones.
“Why so, Captain?”
“Because a convict’s dress suits everyone perfectly,” he growled fiercely. And he added with emphasis, turning to Maxime du Touchais: “Who can boast to-day that a convict’s dress wouldn’t suit him? A convict’s dress is the only dress that makes a man look as he ought to look.”
Delighted to have produced a certain effect he passed on to the next cage.
“The poor man is quite drunk,” whispered the Marquis to Madame d’Artigues.
“I must confess,” she returned, “that he frightens me a little.... Have you noticed his face and eyes when he speaks to you? Oddly enough, it seems to me that the man himself, who isn’t very nice to look upon, is not a stranger to me. Of course, I may have seen his portrait in the newspapers.... Captain.... Captain.... Your portrait was published in the newspapers, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” returned Chéri-Bibi, giving a start. “It; WAS printed beside Chéri-Bibi’s when it was announced that I was to take him to Cayenne.... Look, there he is, your Chéri-Bibi.”
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 155
